Monday, October 13, 2008

Sullivan met Miss Vicky today - she's his new teacher!
He got to do finger painting and had a snack with the kids... there are a whopping 5 kids in the class! So much for being lost in a crowd of crying one year olds.
He seemed to do fine....I, on the other hand, was a little upset, but it's fine.
He's going to love it and I think he'll actually learn a lot from the kids - so that's all good.

I would also like to say that since we bought our Hybrid nearly three weeks ago, I have had to put gas in it ONCE. I feel pretty good about that. I feel especially good when I park next to moms in big SUVs and mini-vans and know that our gas costs about 1/8th of theirs per month.
(Sorry if you have either of the above....nothing personal.)

Oh and kindergarten. Do your teacher a favor and teach your kids how to sit on a chair, how to walk up stairs, how to use scissors, and if you have time, how to read and write.

Happy Columbus Day...(even though he was kind of a creep....)

Monday, October 6, 2008

Thoughts for the evening.

1. Being a full-time working mom is hard and tiring. But it's so nice to come home to a sweet little family! I think we'll all get through this. Sullivan starts his preschool class next week...I'll have to pack him lunches and send in a blanket for him to sleep with!
2. This election is old news. McCain/Palin are just sad - reaching for the Ayers stuff. It makes me wretch a tiny bit. It's especially sad that so many people just believe whatever they hear and don't go find out information for themselves. It's also funny to me that the same people who loathe the NY Times are the same people who Tivo Hannity Colmes. You tell me whose side you would rather be on. Blech.
3. Thank God for SNL. At least someone has their ear to the tracks. There's something to be said for political satire - I think it's a necessary part of the process, and they are able to be honest and thoughtful in an intelligent way. (and funny)
4. I'm sick and it STINKS. How can you be absent from your brand new kindergarten class?? You can't...silly. I have no voice, and I can't yell at the stinkers, but we'll see... at least in third grade, when I didn't have a voice, I could write directions on the board and they could read them. No such luck in K.

And now I'm getting into bed. Sullivan is down for the night and David is at the new house scraping and meeting with the plumber to figure out how to retrofit our cast iron tub with a shower.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Finished my second day back at teaching and looking forward to my first official weekend as a working mom. (Although I just had two days off for the Jewish New Year.)
So I was expecting to have the classroom teacher in the room with me for the whole week. Her lesson plans might as well have been in Sanskrit and her classroom routines...well...I'd been in there for one day. And these kids are young. 5 year olds. So I was wondering at around 9:45 this morning (when art was wrapping up) where the teacher was! What happens next? What's the schedule? And it dawns on me that she's not coming back. That was fine - we had 45 minutes before lunch - just enough time for a short little circle time to introduce each other and read and talk about what we do to get ready for school. But lunch ended at 11:15 and I had no plan, no copy paper, no whiteboard markers....she took everything. Fortunately she left her nonsensical lesson plans which were of NO help at all. So it's me and the 5 year olds. For 4 hours. I was smart enough and have worked with enough kids to know that's a long time. That's a long time for me to be sitting there.
I have much more to say. But since I'm officially an employee of the Philadelphia School District, I guess I should take one for the team or whatever.
But in all my life, I've never seen such a system - one that seems to not care for students, teachers, or learning....that overprograms in the hopes of looking like they have it all together.
There is a closet in the room that is, no joke, halfway filled up of Philadelphia's failed "curricula" - meaning that they started using something and then switched and switched, and then switched again.
I'm off. No more Internet fun for me. I have to go figure out what to do tomorrow!